Tenter clip

ABSTRACT

Tenter clip comprising a pressing vane having at the bottom thereof a longitudinal groove of semicircular cylindrical shape, with an aperture on its side for fitting a pin therein, an interchangeable pressing member having a notch parallel with or at a certain angle to a recess in the vane, with interchangeable parts allowing different materials to be securely clipped, such as thick or thin materials (cloth or film), those with a varying thickness, and/or high- or low-friction material surfaces (e.g., slippery sheets).

United States Patent Takasaki Feb. 5, 1974 TENTER CLIP Prima Examiner-Robb R. Ga 751 tzShkTkk1A k, y Y men or g? l 3 am magasa i Assistant Examinerl(enneth J. Dorner Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Tab T. Thein [73] Assignee: Kaneshigl Tenter Clip Co., Ltd.,

Amagasaki, Hyogo, Japan [22] Filed: Feb. 23, 1972 [57] ABSTRACT [21] Appl. No.: 228,572

Tenter clip comprising a pressing vane having at the [30] Foreign Application Priority Data bottom thereof a longitudinal groove of semicircular Feb. 26, 1971 Japan 46-45944 Cylindrical Shape, with an aperture 011 its Side for ting a pin therein, an interchangeable pressing mem- 52 US. Cl. 26/62 B, 24/248 FS her having a notch parallel with or at a certain angle 51 1m. 01. D06C 3/04 to a recess in h vane, i interchangeable parts [58] Field of Search,. 24/248 R, 248 F5, 248 PC, lowing different materials to be securely clipped, such 24/248 D, 26/62 B, 62 C as thick or thin materials (cloth or-film), those with a varying thickness, and/or highor low-friction material [56] References Cited surfaces (e.g., slippery sheets).

UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,822,676 9/1931 Stelling 26/62 B 10 Claims, 7 Drawmg Flgllres Patented Feb. 5, 1974 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Patented Feb. 5, 1974 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 TENTER CLIP This invention relates to the clipping part of a tenter clip, and more particularly to a clip which is convenient to engage any kinds of cloths and plastic films.

In conventional tenter clips, the problem of clipping different materials, such as relatively thick cloth and relatively thin plastic film, has not been solved satisfactorily. In order to clip for example slippery sheets, such as plastic films, without spoiling their surfaces, the clips are required to have a delicate clipping effect of tightening up. In order not to spoil the surfaces of such delicate materials, it should be absolutely avoided that the clipping action unevenly or partially presses the materials.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a tenter clip which is effective to clip all kinds of sheet materials such as cloth, especially plastic films, with the required degree of surface contact and with an unbiased distribution of pressure.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a tenter clip which ensures clipping with surface contact irrespective of a uniform or varying thickness of the material.

A further object of the invention is to provide tenter clips which are easy to interchange in their clipping parts, depending upon the hardness, tensile strength, coefficient of friction and/or objects of use of the materials to be clipped.

Other objects and many of the attendant advantages of the invention will be readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when considered with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a side view of an exemplary tenter clip according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a front view of the same;

FIG. 3 is a partially enlarged sectional view, taken on the section line Ill III in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is an exploded perspective view of the main parts of the inventive tenter clip;

FIG. 5 is a perspective front view of the tenter clip; and

FIGS. 6a, 6b show modified pressing members to be used with the exemplary tenter-clip embodiment.

Referring now more particularly to the drawings, numeral 1 denotes a clip body comprising at its back a roller link 2 by which a plurality of such clips is linked in the form of an endless chain (not shown), a sheetsupporting plate 3 at the front of its lower side, and a perpendicular bracket 4 at the back of its upper side. At both ends of the bracket 4, a pair of arms 5a, 5b is provided (see FIG. 2) projecting above the plate 3. A pressing vane 7 is pivotally secured to the arms 5a, 5b through the medium of shaft 6 or the like member. At the shaft ends, lock washers 6a are preferably provided.

The vane, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, consists of a body 9 which has at the bottom thereof a longitudinal groove 8 of semicircular cylindrical shape and a pressing member 10 of a corresponding semicircular pillar shape, which rotatably fits in said groove 8. The vane body may be constructed integrally with an arm-shaped member 11 which is provided with the shaft 6, or more preferably, as shown in the figures, the vane body 9 is connected with the member 11 by passing a pin 16 through two holes 13 and 15 respectively provided in members 11 and 9. Hole 13 is made rectangular to a groove or recess 12 provided longitudinally at the lower side of the arm-shaped member, preferably unitary with said pressing vane 7, while hole 15 is made in the middle of a longitudinal upward ridge 14 on the upper side of the vane body 9. Such connection between the body 9 and the member 11 allows the former to rotate about a certain angle in the longitudinal direction. Recess 12 is made sufficiently deep to allow this.

FIG. 5 shows in a frontal perspective view the described parts of the inventive, exemplary tenter clip, with the described pressing member 10, having the engaging surface identified by numeral 21.

Alternative embodiments of the pressing member 10 will be described with reference to FIGS. 6a and 6b.

With this construction, when a sheet material as shown at 17, such as a plastic film, is clipped with a specially shaped, e.g., the serrated engaging or pressing surface 21 of the member 10, the vane body 9 always descends horizontally onto the sheet material and never brings any ill balancing disparity of pressure thereon in the longitudinal direction because the vane body automatically rotates by gravity and corrects any errors, looseness and also a possible inclination occurred in the process of manufacturing the arm-shaped member 11.

FIGS. 60 and 6b show respective modified or alternative pressing-member embodiments 10a and 10b, with engaging surfaces 21a and 21b. The former is smooth and substantially flat so as better to engage and clip thin sheets such as films. The latter has a plurality of microprotrusions on account of the illustrated tight serration of the surface, to be used for example for slippery surfaces to be clipped or for those having a low coefficient of friction. The saw-tooth shaped engaging surface 21 is of course shown in the previously described illustrations, such as FIGS. l, 3, 4 and 5.

To clip rather thick and solid materials such as cloth, the pressing surface 21 may be shaped in saw-tooth form or with many small projections. To clip sheets having slippery surfaces and a very small coefficient of friction, such as plastic films or soft materials, the

' pressing surface 21 may be flat or alternatively formed with a plurality of microprojections in the surface.

For the use of tenter clips according to the present invention, it is preferable to have a stock of a plurality of interchangeable pressing members 10, each having a particular surface corresponding to the characteristic of a kind of sheet to be clipped.

The tenter clip according to the present invention is constructed by forming the longitudinal semicircular groove 8 at the bottom of the vane body 9, fittingly inserting the pressing member 10 into said groove 8, providing a pin 20 to hold the pressing member 10 by passing the pin through an aperture 18 in the vane body 9, provided rectangularly to the groove 8 drilled from one side of the vane body, and a notched part 19 made on the pressing member 10 in parallel with or at a certain angle of inclination to the aperture 18, and to the engaging surface 21, and making it possible to automatically adjust the angle at which the member 10 presses the above-mentioned sheet supporting plate 3, according to the clipping position of the tenter clip or to the thickness of the sheet material to be clipped.

While it was mentioned before that the member 10 rotatably fits into groove 8, it should be noted from the sectional view of FIG. 3 (not visible in the end or side view of FIG. 1) that the notched part 19 on member 10 providesa clearance below pin 20 sufficient to allow limited rotation of said member 10, together with its engaging surface 21, as will be explained further down in more detail.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that this novel and useful effect is brought about by three freedoms of movement, complementing each other, namely the pivotal attachment of the elements 1, 3, 4, 7, etc., with respect to the arms 5a, 5b, the angular movement between the pressing vane body 9 (and its ridge 14) with respect to the pressing vane 7 proper, and finally the rotational movement of member 10, with surface 21 thereon, within groove 8 of vane body 9.

For a better visualization of these components, contributing as they do do the proper clipping of the sheet materials, respective arrows A, B and C have been applied to FIGS. 3, 2 and (again) 3. It will be noted that the angular freedom of movement B is in a plane perpendicular to that in which the pivotal movement A and the rotational movement C are allowed. The phantom-line illustration of certain parts in FIG. 3 shows the result of the pivotal movement A only; rotation (C) of element 10 would be additional (in the same or the opposite direction) while the angular or swinging movement (B) of elements 9, 10 together would be below and above the plane of the drawing, as it were, in FIG.

From the three independent movements (pivotal, angular and rotational), the limited rotation (C) of member 10 below pin is most important, on account of the provision of the earlier-mentioned clearance in the area of notch 19, the depth of the latter being larger than the diameter-of pin 20, as can be seen from FIG. 3. This enables material to be engaged and pressed by surface 21 which has an irregular or varying thickness, in addition to thin and thick (but substantially uniform) materials. The surface 21 adapts itself to the ups and downs and angular variations of the sheet material 17, and thereby provides the required degree of surface contact and pressure distribution in the inventive tenter clip.

It is also preferable to have a plurality of pressing memberslO among which some have a notch such as 19 parallel to the aperture 18 and others have notches with specific angles of inclination to the same. Further, as for pin 20 which is passed into the aperture 18 and the notch 19, it is preferable to adopt a conventional roll-type pin or a cotter pin which fastens by resilience.

Clip body 1 and member 11 are manufactured by casting malleable cast iron in order to form them into a single body. More preferably, the plate 3 included in the body 1 is made of stainless steel for the purpose of preventing frictional loss caused after repeated clipping operation. Likewise, it is preferable that the pressing member 10 which opposes the sheet supporting plate 3 is also made of stainless steel.

Tenter clips of the described construction have the following advantages. First, mounting and demounting of the pressing member 10 is easily done, only by operating the pin 20, owing to the construction in which the member 10 is rotatably clamped by being longitudinally inserted into the groove 8 of the correspondingly shaped vane body 9, and the member 10 is prevented by the pin 20 from moving in a longitudinal direction,

which pin is pushed into the pressing meber 10 at right angles with the groove 8 and from one side of the vane body 9.

Second, the pressing surface 21 on the member 10 is always adapted to keep a surface contact horizontally with the sheet material irrespective of the thickness of the material or the angle at which the tenter clip is mounted. This is so because the notch 19 on the member 10 is arranged parallel to or at a slight angle of inclination to the aperture 18 in the groove 8 of the vane body 9. Accordingly, a pretty large contacting area is maintained on the sheet material 17 which makes it possible to effect clipping with a good surface contact and even distribution of pressure, and thus to avoid socalled biased clipping.

As is mentioned above, the pressing member 10 can easily be mounted or demounted by operating the pin 20. Accordingly, by keeping a stock of various kinds of pressingmembers it is possible to interchange them quickly where necessary. Further, in case the sheet material is very thick or very thin, or in case where the tenter clip is set at a very large angle, it is possible to keep a stock of interchangeable pressing members that have a notch 19 with an angle of inclination to correspond to such cases and interchange them quickly where necessary.

Since the pressing member 10 is supported by the whole inner surface of the groove 8 in the vane body 9, the pressure onto the surface 21 acts on the entire pressing member 10 and the vane body 9 as a whole. This ensures that the pressing surface 21 is entirely free from warp even when in use for a long period of time.

It should be understood, of course, that the foregoing disclosure relates only to preferred embodiments of the invention, and that it is intended to cover all changes and modifications of the example described which do not constitute departures from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What I claim is:

l. A tenter clip for clipping sheet materials of different and varying thickness and surface characteristics,

- comprising a sheet supporting plate, a perpendicular bracket, a pair of arms projecting above said plate from the ends of said bracket, a pressing vane supported between said arms with limited pivotal movement with respect thereto, said pressing vane comprising a vane body having a longitudinal groove of semicircular cylindrical shape at the bottom thereof, withlimited angular movement between said pressing vane and said vane body, an interchangeable pressing member of a corresponding semicircular pillar shape, fitting rotatably into said groove, said pressing member having a surface for engaging the sheets, and means for operatively interconnecting said pressing vane with said vane body, and the latter with said pressing member, said means for interconnecting said vane body with said pressing member including a pin removably inserted in an aperture of said vane body and protruding into a I notch formed in said pressing member, said aperture being substantially at right angles to said groove, said notch defining below said pin a clearance for free and limited rotation of said pressing member about its longitudinal axis, thereby serving automatically to adjust the pressing angle of said engaging surface with respect to the sheets clipped thereby, and evenly to clip the latter, whereby the pivotal, angular and rotational movements of the respective elements of the tenter clip contribute to its ready adaptation to and secure clipping of the sheets, with the required degree of surface contact and pressure distribution.

2. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said supporting plate, said bracket and said arms are made of a single piece, further including thereon a clip body portion with means for linking the tenter clip to adjoining tenter clips, and an arm portion adapted for manual setting and adjustment.

3. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said engaging surface is serrated to grip thick sheets such as cloth.

4. The tenter clip as defined in claim 3, wherein said engaging surface has a saw-tooth shaped profile.

5. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said engaging surface is substantially flat to clip thin sheets such as films.

6. The tenter clip as defined in claim 5, wherein said engaging surface has a plurality of microprotrusions.

7. The tenture clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said means for interconnecting said pressing vane with said vane body includes a pin passed through respective aligned holes in said pressing vane and said vane body.

8. The tenter clip as defined in claim 7, wherein said pressing vane has at its lower side a longitudinal recess' ture and said engaging surface.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE {IETIFICATE OF CORRECTION P PATENT NO. 5,789, 68

DATED February 5, 1974 INVENTO Shigeaki Takasaki It is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent Q are hereby corrected as shown below:

The correct name of the assignee of the patent is: Kalleshige Tenter Clip 00., Ltd. (instead of "Kaneshigl", as

printed).

Signed and Scaled this thirtieth D ay f March 1976 [SEAL] Arrest:

RUTH C. MASON C. MARSHALL DANN Anesting Officer Commissioner uflatenrs and Trademarks 

1. A tenter clip for clipping sheet materials of different and varying thickness and surface characteristics, comprising a sheet supporting plate, a perpendicular bracket, a pair of arms projecting above said plate from the ends of said bracket, a pressing vane supported between said arms with limited pivotal movement with respect thereto, said pressing vane comprising a vane body having a longitudinal groove of semicircular cylindrical shape at the bottom thereof, with limited angular movement between said pressing vane and said vane body, an interchangeable pressing member of a corresponding semicircular pillar shape, fitting rotatably into said groove, said pressing member having a surface for engaging the sheets, and means for operatively interconnecting said pressing vane with said vane body, and the latter with said pressing member, said means for interconnecting said vane body with said pressing member including a pin removably inserted in an aperture of said vane body and protruding into a notch formed in said pressing member, said aperture being substantially at right angles to said groove, said notch defining below said pin a clearance for free and limited rotation of said pressing member about its longitudinal axis, thereby serving automatically to adjust the pressing angle of said engaging surface with respect to the sheets clipped thereby, and evenly to clip the latter, whereby the pivotal, angular and rotational movements of the respective elements of the tenter clip contribute to its ready adaptation to and secure clipping of the sheets, with the required degree of surface contact and pressure distribution.
 2. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said supporting plate, said bracket and said arms are made of a single piece, further including thereon a clip body portion with means for linking the tenter clip to adjoining tenter clips, and an arm portion adapted for manual setting and adjustment.
 3. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said engaging surface is serrated to grip thick sheets such as cloth.
 4. The tenter clip as defined in claim 3, wherein said engaging surface has a saw-tooth shaped profile.
 5. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said engaging surface is substantially flat to clip thin sheets such as films.
 6. The tenter clip as defined in claim 5, wherein said engaging surface has a plurality of microprotrusions.
 7. The tenture clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said means for interconnecting said pressing vane with said vane body includes a pin passed through respective aligned holes in said pressing vane and said vane body.
 8. The tenter clip as defined in claim 7, wherein said pressing vane has at its lower side a longitudinal recess adapted to receive, with freedom of angular movement about said pin, a prOtruding ridge portion of said vane body.
 9. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said notch is aligned with said aperture in a rectilinear arrangement.
 10. The tenter clip as defined in claim 1, wherein said notch is somewhat inclined with respect to said aperture and said engaging surface. 